From congenital to idiopathic adult hydrocephalus: a historical research.

Reports of idiopathic adult hydrocephalus prior to the 1965 description of idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus by Salomón Hakim and Raymond Adams are lacking in the literature. Congenital paediatric and congenital adult hydrocephalus were considered to trace the early descriptions of idiopathic adult hydrocephalus. Through traditional or digital libraries and internet search engines, the historical sources dealing with idiopathic adult hydrocephalus were explored. The research shows that many distinguished physicians through the centuries have contributed to the discovery of idiopathic adult hydrocephalus. Early descriptions of the disorder were related to autopsy studies in the 18th and 19th centuries. From the second half of the 1800s, idiopathic adult hydrocephalus appeared to have been forgotten in the medical literature.